It’s probably no surprise that we talk about breathing quite a lot in our meditation classes.
We use our breath to help bring our attention inwards.
To help us find a sense of calm…
Help us relax…
Steer us away from the ‘fight or flight’ mode…
And into our parasympathetic nervous system… or ‘rest and digest’ mode.
It’s also crucial to keeping us alive…
So it’s pretty darn important!
Some interesting facts…
Did you know, on average, we take between 12 and 20 breaths per minute?
Or 720 to 1,200 breaths an hour?
Or somewhere between 17,000 and 25,000 breaths a day?
For something so significant, something we do so much of… you’d think we’d take more notice of it.
But most of us don’t.
I came across an article this morning about how better breathing can improve your life.
I won’t go into it all here, but there were a few things I hadn’t come across before.
One was coherent breathing.
While walking, breathe in for five steps and out for five steps.
I practiced this walking up and down our hallway.
It certainly takes some concentration…
And makes you mindfully aware of your breath.
If you struggle to get to sleep, one suggestion was left nostril breathing.
Personally I think I would find this far too difficult (it would propably keep me awake longer trying to keep the right nostil blocked)…
But apparently breathing through your left nostil can also stimulate the parasympathetic nervous system.
Which is, ideally, where you want to be (‘rest and digest’).
Now while I’m aware that breathing through your nose is the best…
I didn’t know the position of your tongue could also help..
Resting your tongue against the roof of your mouth, but not touching your front teeth (as if you were about to say the letter N) opens up the nasal airway.
I experimented with this moving my tongue from the roof, to the bottom of my mouth…
Personally I didn’t notice a great difference…
But I realised I usually have my tongue against the roof of my mouth when I’m nose breathing anyway.
See, you can learn something new every day!
The article was first published nearly three years ago, coincidentally when I wrote another piece about the importance of breathing.
Well sort of…
You can read it here if you’re interested.
And the only reason I discovered that was because I was searching my headline, to make sure I hadn’t used it previously…
Because, again coincidentally, I just happen to be seeing Sting this weekend, at the theatre!
Too much?
Sorry, I’ll go and practice my coherent breathing again.
Ann 🙏